IT’S TIME to say goodbye to another year. Traditionally, this is a time of looking back and of taking stock. As evidence, my inbox is full of “Top 10 Posts of the Year” articles from multitudes of bloggers. I admit, it’s fun — and informative — to look back, to count one’s accomplishments and learn […]
Whatever your holiday traditions, the end of the calendar year can overflow with activities, events, family and friends, and with emotions ranging from joy to depression, from relaxed celebration to stressed responsibility. The very busyness of these days may cause us to neglect journaling, to put it aside as nonessential. Yet the holidays are also an excellent […]
Last week I wrote about ways to get out of a writing rut. Shallow writing is a similar problem, but not as much about being stuck as wanting (needing) to get more out of your writing. Whether you’re journaling for personal growth or to improve your writing craft, the methods for […]
It happens to even the most committed, creative, and inspired writers — journal writers and creative writers alike. I’m talking about The Plateau, The Slump, where everything you write seems dry and hackneyed. Blah, boring. At least you’re sitting down to write, you’re getting words on the page, and that’s something. […]
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton This Thursday we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the U.S. It’s a time for families to get together, eat too much food, and tell stories. It’s also a time when […]
There are as many approaches to journaling as there are aspects of life to focus on; one of these aspects is spirituality. Journaling about spirituality can help bring clarity to your thoughts as well as help define priorities for the competing demands of the other parts of your life: health, work, family, love relationships, […]
Memoir isn’t the summary of a life; it’s a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It’s not; it’s a deliberate construction. ~ William Zinsser, On Writing Well (30th Anniversary Edition) I am often […]
Have you been journaling for a while? Years? If so, you probably have stacks or boxes of handwritten journals stashed away under the bed or in storage somewhere. Do you ever ask yourself, What use are those journals now? Or what will happen to them after I am gone? Or […]
Dialogue does the heavy-lifting work – carrying details, setting the scene and moving the plot forward. ~ J.H. Mae Perhaps more than any other writing device, dialogue brings your readers into the immediacy of scene. It provides a method for showing, not just telling about, a person’s character and personality, as […]
You love writing. And because you love writing, it’s your top priority, something you do every day no matter what (or who) else tries to get in the way. Right? If you’re like me, probably not. Because there’s a lot that gets in the way: a job, a commute, and responsibilities […]
What could be simpler to understand than the act of people writing about what they know best, their own lives? But this apparently simple act is anything but simple, for the writer becomes, in the act of writing, both the observing subject and the object of investigation, remembrance, and contemplation. […]
Since October is Domestic Awareness Month, I want to help bring awareness to this issue while offering ways to write about how violence affects each of us personally. It’s not a subject we like to think about. And when it happens publicly, as recent viral videos have shown, those of us […]
